Orange County Voices : COMMENTARY ON POLITICS : Recession, Crime and Clinton Are Recipe for GOP Victories : County voters will put Huffington over top along with Wilson and Lungren. Measure A, Jim Silva will also win.

The Orange County electorate is in a sober mood. Two years of Bill Clinton in the White House coupled with wearying recession and the incursion of violent crime into even the most security - minded neighborhoods have combined to cement an attitude of seriousness. That undeniable resolve will produce some crucial results on the Wednesday after the election.

1. Huffington beats Feinstein statewide, propelled by a huge margin from Orange County: Folks have figured out that California is not best represented by two hyper-liberals from San Francisco. Orange County knew that two years ago, but the rest of the state gambled on a Feinstein-Boxer-Clinton sweep.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein will suffer the wrath of retirees and near-retirees throughout the county. When she voted to tax Social Security benefits, she cut the real income of folks who could least afford it. Perhaps she counted on the shock value of a Democrat breaking faith with a constituency that has long provided a buffer for liberals. The Leisure World buzz is angry, however, and mobilized. Even the longtime Democrats have to be shocked by Feinstein’s breach of faith.

Independents in the county note Feinstein’s unfailing support of the Clinton agenda, right down to her 10 votes to halt Whitewater hearings in the Senate. Clinton has always been a losing proposition in this area, even on the night of his victory. Feinstein threw in with him. The county’s independents will throw in with Mike Huffington as a result.

Even the county’s stronghold of Democratic votes--a large Latino block and the voters on the factory floor--are deserting. First, Feinstein threw her Latino supporters overboard in an attempt to demagogue the border issue. And the revelation of Feinstein’s use of a taxpayer-provided chauffeur infuriates folks who work hard and simply cannot square such a taxpayer-provided luxury with Feinstein’s net worth of $50 million.

At the same time, Huffington has a message that has comforted the county’s conservative bloc. Though he’s a moderate on the social issues, Huffington’s vigorous assault on the growth of the federal role, especially in the welfare system, has found an enthusiastic audience in a region overwhelmed by unfunded and intrusive federal demands.

The result: Huffington carries the county by a quarter-million votes--enough to overcome Feinstein’s home base in San Francisco.

2. The Wilson-Lungren repeat: State Democratic Party chair Bill Press has made a half-dozen forays into Orange County in the past year, trying his best to interest a hostile audience in Kathleen Brown and Tom Umberg. Sorry Bill, Kathleen’s baggage is too heavy. Brother Jerry and father Pat never ran well in Orange County, and Kathleen’s attempt to distance herself from her own name is as implausible as it has been ineffective.

As for young Tom Umberg, well, Orange County is a pretty sophisticated place. Umberg’s antics on the Assembly Committee on Public Safety did not escape notice. Umberg’s political schizophrenia--reliable ally of Speaker Willie Brown while in Sacramento, tough-tally candidate while in-county--was noticed long ago. Umberg would not have won reelection in his district had he run. The proof: Jim Morissey will capture the 69th fairly handily. Umberg got out of Dodge before the voters’ posse arrived. But his election make-over won’t pass in Orange County, where Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren may well be the single most popular statewide elected official.

3. Measure A Wins: Twelve hours of radio and 10 hours of television a month bring me into conversation with a lot of folks. I am thus no longer surprised to learn how deeply the Clinton-Feinstein defense build-down has cut. The reckless rush to shutter the state’s defense industry built a malicious synergy with the base closure plans on Tustin and El Toro, as well as with a business climate gone sour after 20 years of Sacramento looting and a dozen years of random darts thrown at business by the likes of the South Coast Air Quality Management District. The damage done to Orange County’s industrial and manufacturing job base was huge, which brings us to Measure A.

The quality of life in Orange County depends, first and foremost, on its high-wage job base, a base that eroded before the electorate’s eyes in the space of a couple of years. The County simply cannot afford the luxury of Larry Agran’s vision of a vast experimental farm at El Toro. Voters will pull the yes lever for Measure A because they know that the schools, the libraries, the police and all other services that they demand even from an appropriately managed government depend, in the end, on private sector jobs. A high-tech airport at El Toro--safe, quiet, and state-of-the-art--is the county’s guarantee of its economic health in the next century. Measure A will pass, and by a healthy margin.

4. The Silva Romp in the Supervisorial 2nd District: Thus far, I’ve focused on issues every county voter will confront. But one race, more than all the others, ought to finally still the occasional media-based ruminations on the changing face of Orange County’s politics.

There’s an open seat on the Board of Supervisors in the 2nd District. Reagan Republican Jim Silva won Round One, and is in a runoff with liberal Democrat Linda Moulton Patterson. Moulton Patterson has been telling everyone who will listen that this is a “nonpartisan” race, and her national political preferences don’t matter.

Of course, she has no choice but to deny the relevance of her liberal record. As a Clinton delegate at the 1992 Democratic convention, Moulton Patterson’s bedrock ideas are pretty obvious. Two years ago, when Harriett Wieder and a handful of occasional Republicans of obscure origin and even less influence declared for Bill Clinton, the media went nuts declaring a sea change in Orange County’s political climate. All nonsense, of course, but Moulton Patterson evidently was inspired by Wieder’s leadership and jumped with glee into the Clinton campaign. Now that the President’s appeal has dropped to an even more microscopic level in the county, Harriett’s retired, the other (Benedict) Arnolds are nowhere to be seen, and Moulton Patterson is desperate to appear as anything other than what she is, a lifelong liberal Democrat.

Well, sorry. Jim Silva’s just about the model for a successful Orange County candidate--competent, experienced and personally modest. His low-key but believable commitment to low taxes and his support for public safety issues would have brought him a win anyway. Linda Moulton Patterson’s ideological ties to Boxer-Feinstein-Clinton, however, guarantee Silva a runaway.

Two years ago, not even Orange County could anchor California to an agenda of common sense. It was an odd year then, and the county electorate could only stand aside and shake a collective head at the silliness statewide. This year, however, this county is in the driver’s seat. And without a moment to spare.